Why Cell Phones and Tablets do Not Need Cooler?

Article date: 26.12.11

There are times that smartphones and tablets are no longer luxury items to become indispensable equipment for many Brazilians, not by chance. After all, these gadgets can be as useful as notebooks and desktop computers, with a good processing power and dozens of sensors that make them true digital Swiss Army knives.

Despite all this technology that fits in a pocket, a detail about these gadgets goes unnoticed by many users: you do not see any fan in them, unlike what happens with their larger cousins.

The Tecmundo prepared this matter that will help you better understand why there are no holes through which hot air is blown out in tablets and smartphones. Check this out!

Energy generates heat

To understand the reasons for the efficiency in maintaining the temperature of the laptops, we must first understand what makes computers more need of so many fans. The first noticeable difference between the two worlds is the space they occupy. Of course, not the size that makes the desktop be warmer, but you will soon see that the relationship is quite large.

Most desktops and notebooks are still too dependent on mechanical components to operate, such as CD players and hard drives that have many moving parts. Unlike electronic circuits, the miniaturization of physical mechanisms is much more difficult, making the minimum threshold for the size of them to be much higher. Tablets and smartphones rely only on purely electronic circuits for almost all its functions.

Moving moving parts is an energetically costly work, which explains the size of a component that generates heat in computers: energy sources. Power supplies are responsible for modulating the AC outlet and turn them in different direct currents that feed the computer components.

The greater the variability of energy and demand components, more capacitors, transistors and mosfets need the source, generating all its own share of heat. In short, we can say that the first reason that makes desktops and notebooks get hotter is the largest amount of energy running into them.

In laptops, the source is almost completely absent, since they are powered by batteries that store energy in a certain voltage and modulation. The need for a source that lies between the gadget and the wall outlet still exists for those times when the device is loaded, while totally foreign.

It is also worth noting that the more difficult it is to manufacture a component, the more expensive it gets. Therefore, manufacturers do not invest much in miniaturization and energy efficiency of laptops and especially desktops, because that is not a primary need for the market.

Different architecture

Another reason that makes gadgets require less power to operate the architecture is more specialized. Notebooks and desktops are designed to be robust and highly scalable, always trying to maintain compatibility with as many components as possible.

This is even more evident in computers more "hardcore" with motherboard with over ten USB connectors, a handful of Satans, two network interfaces, multiple PCBs, extra memory slots, and many other connectors. Maintain support for all these devices also increases the flow of energy between the plates and controller chips, contributing to the internal heat.

Since the tablets are highly focused and are not designed to support almost no extra component beyond what is already embedded on the motherboard. Thus, manufacturers can limit the tablets and smartphones have only one motherboard that already includes the processor, RAM and other controllers.

All this expertise and control over the different components of the gadget is a recipe for the practice to join the largest possible number of controllers within a single integrated circuit, the so-called system on a chip. Again, reduce the number of ICs reduces power consumption and thus heat production.

Smaller and more efficient

Last but not least, is the fact that the requirement of processing for mobile devices is much smaller. For more powerful than an iPad or tablet with the latest version of Android may seem, he could hardly run (quietly) an application-level Microsoft Word 2010, with all its hundreds of tools and dependencies.

After all, portable gadgets are designed for portable applications, with little information appearing simultaneously on a screen much smaller than a notebook or desktop. Adding this to the fact that the operating system is more streamlined, the result is a satisfactory performance even with less powerful hardware.

Another factor that greatly decreases the production of heat is the architecture of the component that is usually the more heats: the processor. The CPUs of the tablets are made to reach as many functions as possible with minimum transistors, which contributes greatly to energy savings.

The low heat of all these modern components allows only passive heatsinks are enough to cool the unit, eliminating the need for mechanical fans.

The battery thanks

Note that almost all the advantages of tablets and smartphones that have been mentioned so far received primary emphasis on energy efficiency, then the heat generated. This approach does not happen by chance, after all, the less energy it consumed, the longer the battery will last the gadget, and keep it cold longer.

Such is the concern about the power consumption of notebook manufacturers have opted to use only components with high efficiency not only in processors and storage units, but the unit as a whole. Just look back to the main board of the iPad (above) to realize that aluminum capacitors (round ones) led to a few tantalum capacitors and many silicon microchips.

Moreover, the very fans are mechanical components that need to consume energy to operate, hence the actual device used to cool the device is an agent that contributes to the heat, something completely unwanted.